An intellectual property court has ruled against international clothing retailer Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) after a supplier alleged that it stole a copyrighted design.
According to reports, East Lancashire-based Response Clothing had supplied a jacquard fabric, “wave arrangement” design ladies top to EMW between 2009 and 2012.
However, the retailer, owned by British billionaire Philip Day, allegedly took the design and a swatch of the fabric to a new supplier after Response Clothing increased its prices.
Making representations before the intellectual property court, Faisal Patel, Sole director of Response Clothing, said his copyright had been infringed by EMW, as well as the new suppliers, citing the design as a “work of artistic craftsmanship”.
EMW, meanwhile, argued that the new product was “materially different from the original”.
“I did not regard the replacement of a garment in our range with another one which uses a fabric which is generally available on the market and is similar to but materially different from the original as wrong or inappropriate. It is standard or commercial practice,” said the company’s senior buyer, Alizon Blythe.
Disagreeing with EMW, however, Judge Richard Hacon said the similarities between the Response Clothing fabric and that of the other suppliers would “have been apparent to a reasonable person” and “would have led that person to believe that dealing in the latter fabrics would be in breach of rights likely to be held by Response”.
“I think it is likely Ms Blythe and possibly others at EWM were either prepared to take the risk EWM was infringing Response’s rights, or alternatively they adopted such a narrow view of those rights that they believed there would be no infringement,” the Judge added.
“But the test is not what Ms Blythe thought, it is what a reasonable person in her position would have thought.”
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